


God's Green Earth

by makeit_takeit



Series: Missing Scenes [2]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Friendship, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:07:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12320769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeit_takeit/pseuds/makeit_takeit
Summary: Mid-"Currahee". After the drop is postponed.Last night, there was revelry and singing, boys saying goodbye to the sweethearts they’d made, camaraderie and morale to spare. Nix was drunk and happy last night, talking about how beautiful France is.





	God's Green Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ on 4/10/2009.

Dick can’t sit and stare at this insipid movie one second longer, so he gets up, makes his way down the crowded row and forces himself to control his pace as he walks from the tent into the overcast dusk. The men are jumpy enough, on edge, the last thing they need is to see the officers looking skittish. So he takes his skittish brain, his skittish body outside, where they won’t see it.

Lew appears out of nowhere, like he does. Flask attached to his hand, looking up at the sky, insisting it’s clearing up when any fool can see it’s not even close to clearing up. Talking wistfully about home, his eyes scanning the horizon helplessly.

When he talks like this, Dick is reminded of just how far apart they are, in the real world. In the army they’re thick as thieves, closer than brothers, equally yoked by their duty and sacrifice and their shared destiny, whatever it may turn out to be. But back home, they live in two separate worlds. _Without the army,_ Dick is thinking _, If not for the war, we never would have met,_ while Nix goes on about New York and Chicago, about Happy Hour and The Theater.

_A civilized place, for civilized men._

_Should’ve been born earlier, Nix._

_What, and give up all this?_

Dick turns and gives Nix a quirk of his mouth, the half grin that says  _you’re full of it._ But Nixon’s eyes are dark, serious, and it reminds Dick that Lew didn’t just end up here on a whim; his is not an accidental fate. Nix wouldn’t be anywhere but here, right now, just like Dick wouldn’t; like all those men in the movie tent wouldn’t. Whatever their fears, whatever their doubts, however their anxious hands drum on bouncing knees, however little chance they any of them have of actual sleep tonight, for a second night in a row - not one of them would take it back if they could. Lew sticks a cigarette between his lips.

_We’ll go to Chicago. I’ll take you there._

_Yeah. We’ll see._

Dick doesn’t want to say what they’re both thinking. We’ll see - if we make it out of here alive. Until then, no sense making plans. No sense in empty promises.

Lew tips up his flask when his smoke has burned down to nothing. He drains it, holds it out to Dick with a meaningful shake, and Dick nods almost imperceptibly, dubious resignation. He pushes back the flap to the tent that houses his office and follows Nix inside. He turns on the small desk lamp, circle of light falling on the dented metal top; the room glows dim yellow while Nixon is digging a bottle out of Dick’s foot locker.

Nix fills his flask, takes the only other seat in the room besides the desk-chair Dick’s sitting in. Dick shuffles papers, makes notes, studies his charts, going over and over it in his head; all the while Nix sits in the corner and drinks, head back, eyes to the ceiling.  They don’t speak.

Last night, there was revelry and singing, boys saying goodbye to the sweethearts they’d made, camaraderie and morale to spare. Nix was drunk and happy last night, talking about how beautiful France is. All of it, the bravado and the cheering, the eagerness for battle, it got stifled with the fog, and now the whole camp is quiet and still as death. Now, Dick feels better just having Nix sit there across the room, not near enough to be dangerous but near enough to keep watch over. They’re used to that, that’s ordinary and pedestrian, that’s typical Winters and Nixon even if nothing else about this night is typical, and there’s solace in that normalcy. It takes the edge off the waiting for both of them. 

 _So,_ Nix finally says, after the dusky light glowing around the bottom of the tent has long since faded and gone inky black, after his flask is empty again _._

_So Meehan, he’s okay?_

_Yeah. Good man._

_All well and good, but is he a good soldier?_

_You mean is he gonna get us all killed?_

_I mean is he gonna get_ you _killed._

Dick raises his head, looks in Nix’s general direction. The corner where Lew sits is shrouded in darkness, outside the reach of the desk lamp’s range. Dick sees the light reflect off the silver plating of the flask, but he can’t make out the hand that holds it; just looks into the dark knowing Nix’s eyes are in there somewhere, black as shadows.

_I don't plan on dying, Lew._

_No one ever does._

_Gonna shoot me; keep me from jumping?_

_Not 'cause I haven’t thought about it._

_What about you?_

_What_ about _me?_

_Making the same jump, Nix._

_Yeah._

_Don’t seem too worried about that._

Nix is quiet, fingers drumming against his flask. Dick goes back to his charts, exhales loudly. His heart feels too big for his chest, like it’s going to hammer its way right out of his ribs. For three years, it’s been like this. Winters and Nixon, Dick and Lew, from OCS right through to Upottery, and he knows how to read Nix by now; if there’s one thing on God’s green earth he  _knows_ , it’s that. It’s been leading up to this, everything, but he can see it clear as day: Nix has never thought about how it would be, when the moment arrived. When they’d have to go their separate ways, climb into different planes, be responsible for different men, different objectives. When they’d have to say goodbye, and know it might be for good. Then have to put it out of their minds, because they have a job to do, and by God they do it well, both of them. 

Nix was drunk and happy last night, caught up in the excitement, and he kissed Dick sloppily on the cheek as they went their separate ways, a loud smacking noise and a chortle as he walked away yelling,  _Give ‘em hell!_ , and  _Currahee!,_ without even looking back.

Dick can see that Nix has never thought of it like this though, not like this, with a thick dose of reality settling over them. Dick has thought of little else since they left US soil.

_Thing is, Dick. The intelligence is good on this one. We know what we're heading for, and it’s--_

_It’s gonna be messy._

Real _messy._

_I’m good at what I do, Nix._

_I’ve seen the bars on your collar._

_You’re good at what you do._

_Damn good._

_We’ll be fine._

_Yeah?_

_Yeah._

_We’re going to Chicago, Dick. Swear to me we’re going to fuckin’ Chicago, okay?_

_We’ll go to Chicago._

_Swear._

_I swear. We’ll go to Chicago._

What else can he say? Tonight Nix is drunk and irrational and scared more for Dick than for himself, and Dick is sure that must make it okay to swear. He needs Lew to be clear-headed, to have all his wits about him and nothing but survival on his mind when they make that jump. So he swears, and Lew tips his head back again, apparently satisfied, and starts to snore. Dick sits in the chair and listens to him, all night, and thinks, _if this is the last night, at least we got to spend it like this._

At first light they stand next to Dick’s desk, both stubbly and ragged looking; bleary blue stares into blood-shot brown. They shake hands at first, conduct befitting two officers, and then Nix wraps his arms around Dick, hands spread wide on his back, and Dick feels hot skin against his ear and the solid bulk of Nix’s body against his and has to struggle to keep from grabbing on too tight, from pulling too close.

_See you over there._

_You, too._

They hang on a minute longer, then Nix’s head turns just a little, warm breath on Dick’s neck and a low murmur that Dick can’t understand and isn’t sure he wants to - then Nixon is gone. Dick watches the flap of the tent flutter closed, hears the crunch of Nix’s boots on the dirt get farther away until they blend in with all the other footsteps, all the other noise.


End file.
